Zelenskyj is happy about new international aid pledges, Putin uses a summit meeting to criticize the West. In Moscow, explosions echoed through the night again. The news at a glance.
Kiev/Moscow – In a survey, a large majority of Ukrainians spoke out against compromises with war opponent Russia in exchange for a peace agreement.
According to the results published yesterday by two well-known institutes, more than 90 percent of the approximately 2,000 respondents are against the transfer of territory. Almost 74 percent ruled out the option of joining NATO. Meanwhile, the presidents of Ukraine and Russia sought broad support from the heads of state and government of other countries. According to the authorities, the air defense in Moscow fended off new Ukrainian drone attacks.
In the survey, 80 percent of the participants rejected a reduction in the number of troops in the Ukrainian army in peacetime. At the same time, only just under 49 percent of them expected a positive development of events in their own country. In December last year, after the successful expulsion of the Russian occupiers from northern Ukraine and large parts of the Kharkiv and Cherson regions, it was still almost 60 percent. The survey was conducted in government-controlled regions excluding Luhansk Oblast, Donetsk Oblast and the Crimean Peninsula.
Loud explosions echoed through Moscow
Ukraine has been fighting off a Russian invasion for almost 18 months with massive Western aid. Russian demands include relinquishing Ukrainian territory in the east and south, including Crimea, annexed in 2014. Ukraine should also refrain from joining the western military alliance NATO, which is enshrined in the constitution, agree to extensive demilitarization and grant the Russian minority in the country more rights.
Moscow currently controls almost 20 percent of Ukrainian territory – but is increasingly confronted with pinprick counterattacks on its own soil. Like yesterday morning, crashing explosions echoed through the metropolis of Moscow during the night.
Two Ukrainian drones were shot down, the Russian Defense Ministry said, according to the state news agency TASS. The air defense system disrupted the control system of a third flying robot, after which it crashed into an unfinished building in a high-rise district of the city. So there were no victims. Operations at the capital’s airports have resumed after a brief interruption.
Zelenskyj thanks EU countries for military and reconstruction aid
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj was satisfied with the results of his multi-day trip through European capitals and thanked the countries for the promised military and reconstruction aid. “There are planes for Ukraine. There is additional armor and we are strengthening air defenses,” he said in his daily video address. This time it was recorded on a train that Selenskyj was taking back to Kiev after traveling through various EU countries.
After stays in Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark, he finally visited Greece and spoke to several heads of state and government in the Balkan region, explained Zelenskyj. Denmark and the Netherlands recently promised Ukraine the delivery of Western F-16 fighter jets. Zelenskyy thanked Greece not only for the arms aid, but also for the promise to take over the patronage for the reconstruction of the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, which had been hit several times by Russian rocket and drone attacks.
Putin denies blame for breach of grain deal
Meanwhile, during an appearance at the Brics summit in South Africa, Russian President Vladimir Putin renewed his criticism of the West and Ukraine. For example, the grain agreement with Ukraine was suspended because none of the conditions stipulated in the agreement to facilitate the export of Russian grain and fertilizers had been met. “Commitments to Russia on this were simply ignored,” he claimed in a video-transmitted speech at the Brics Group meeting of key emerging economies in South Africa.
Moscow will only lift the blockade of Ukrainian ports and return to the agreement once all Russian demands have been met, Putin said. At the same time, he offered to replace Ukrainian deliveries of grain on the world market with Russian transports, “both on a commercial basis and through free aid to the needy countries”. Despite international warnings of a food crisis, Moscow suspended the agreement concluded last summer on the export of Ukrainian grain, mediated by the UN and Turkey.
Media: Senior Russian General Surovikin deposed
According to the media, the head of the Russian aerospace troops, General Sergei Surovikin, who was important in the war against Ukraine, was relieved of his office two months after the uprising of the Wagner mercenary group. The ex-editor-in-chief of the dissolved liberal radio station Echo Moskvy, Alexey Venediktov, wrote on his Telegram channel, citing an official decree, that Surovikin would remain under the control of the Defense Ministry. The decree itself was not initially published, although several nationalist Russian military blogs reported on Surovikin’s replacement.
From October 2022 to January 2023, Surovikin was the supreme commander of Russian units in Ukraine. He was considered one of the most important allies of the mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the regular Russian army in his power struggle with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov. Although Surovikin publicly condemned the uprising of the Wagner troops at the end of June, according to political observers he was subsequently sidelined.
Biden adviser: Continued US bipartisan support
The US government continues to pledge long-term support to Ukraine – despite different tones from parts of the Republican Party. US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said there were strong Republican and Democratic voices in key leadership positions in both the House and Senate that advocated continuing financial support for Kiev. The government therefore assumes that aid to Kiev will be maintained, even if there are some dissenting voices on the Republican side.
What is important today
The summit of the Brics countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa continues in South Africa’s economic metropolis Johannesburg. Kremlin chief Putin wants to be connected to the plenary session again via video. dpa
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